Covered in Rain
by DaybyDay
Summary: AU; Blaine plays guitar in a cafe, Kurt's there one day and Blaine's smitten. A love song to New York City.


It all ends up here, on a city street at 2AM with snowflakes falling gently around you. He's everything in that moment; the moon, the stars. Everything that's everything, really, pale against the black backdrop of the horizon, a gentle smile on his face and eyes that are so so bright. It's quiet, so quiet in New York City tonight.

He's bright, so bright.

* * *

><p>Once upon a time, you, Blaine Anderson, play guitar in a cafe down in the East Village on Tuesday nights, acoustic, of course, soulful ballads with lyrics that were well beyond your emotional scope and uptempo top 40's with your own personal spin on them that made even the most hipster of patrons stick around to listen.<p>

You live for these moments, in the gently mediocre spotlight with a dozen half-listening audience members, because it's a shining moment that some people in New York never get, really. So many people in such a grand city; it's easy to get lost.

You play often and are told you're asked after when you can't make your regular Tuesday time slots, Wendy the barista winking and tossing you phone numbers on coffee-stained napkins from the regular gaggle of teenage girls that have become staples at your little gig. They get pocketed of course, to save face, but they'll end up in the wash with your laundry, bits of napkin sticking to every shirt and pair of jeans you'd tossed in that load.

* * *

><p>His name is Kurt, Wendy the barista tells you, and he's the boy who's shown up twice now, sitting in the back corner with a non-fat grande mocha and a book. He wears these stylish little wire reading glasses and doesn't look up at you, not once, even when you pull out all the stops and play one of your original songs. You're distracted by him, so distracted, the lovely way his eyelashes flutter and the way he crosses his legs and the immaculate clothes he wears.<p>

"He's nice," Wendy says, shrugging as you lean over the counter closer to one another like two teenagers telling secrets, "Don't know much about him, really. He comes on Thursday afternoons, too, sometimes with a little brunette that talks a lot. I think they're students at Julliard, but I may be wrong about that."

He's still there, in the back corner, fingers testing the warmth of his cup and eyes downcast at the open book on the table below him. You stupidly wish he'd look up; notice you like you've absolutely noticed him, the sloppy guitar player on Tuesday nights, but he doesn't.

* * *

><p>He shines, even in the darkest of nights.<p>

"Blaine Anderson," He says your name like he's trying it out on his tongue, testing it for posterity and strength. His eyes are this amazing blue-green and he's clutching a copy of a compilation of plays by Adam Rapp, fingerless gloves exposing perfectly manicured nails and amazingly long fingers.

"I'm Kurt," He finally responds, looking up at you from this corner table that he's been in when you've started your set the past few weeks.

"I know," You reply, and it's so stupid and creepy to say but it's said and thankfully he's laughing a little, cocking an eyebrow, eyes twinkling.

You're so lost then; you don't know how.

* * *

><p>It's suddenly like life didn't exist before Kurt Hummel for you, not at all.<p>

"I'm really passive aggressive," He warns, on your first date to this wonderful little Italian restaurant on the East side, "And I hate doing dishes. I sing in the shower, loudly – and it's usually showtunes, so sorry, I guess. I don't do well if I don't iron my clothes and I sleep in only on Sundays, so. Oh! Also I like to be mean and I'll be mean to you sometimes, but I won't mean it – mostly."

You stare at him for a moment, against the backdrop of the cheesy red and white checkered table cloths and the waitress with the fake Italian accent and you can't believe this boy even has negative traits that are somehow still so insanely attractive.

"Well I bottle up my feelings," You finally reply, unsure if his tell-all was really an opening for you to expose everything too, but why not, "And I sing all the time, like all the time. I'm the guy who's always playing guitar and I love hearing my own voice."

"It's a very nice voice," Kurt interrupts, and your heart isn't in your chest anymore; it's somewhere in the vicinity of your throat and your fingers tighten on the stem of your wine glass as you try to memorize that expression.

* * *

><p>By date four you feel like you've been in a relationship with this boy forever, because he gets it, he gets you and he's a wonderful kisser and he bends to your will just as much as you bend to his.<p>

He tastes so sweet and his touches are so light and it's so fucking perfect that you cry before you even get his clothes off. When he's stretched out under you, pliant and panting into your mouth and murmuring sweet words of nonsense you forget that you don't really know him; don't know his favorite color or food or what his childhood was like or who his best friend is. All that matters is the sounds he's making, the pleasure you're sharing.

By sunlight he's definitely got a hickey on his collarbone and his hair's a mess and he stretches out like a cat, sleep-warm and content to snuggle into your chest, ankle twining with yours as his hair tickles your nose.

Later, he's not too pleased that his shirt is wrinkled to the nines and that it takes him fifteen minutes to find his second sock but he kisses you so sweetly at the door that it just feels normal.

* * *

><p>In the late fall sunset the colors turn your winter boy into an autumn, the drying leaves making his hair look wonderfully reddish in certain lights, his perfectly tailored pea coat making him seem lean, even leaner than he is, legs going on forever.<p>

You sit with him on the subway coming back from seeing a Broadway show listening to his commentary with a smile, fingers clenched tight around the Playbills handed to you by the pimply-faced usher when you arrived, the memory of his breath on your ear as he whispered his thoughts about the show as it passed through Act I and II and III fresh on your mind.

"I wished you were at the cafe for me," You suddenly say, and his thoughts are interrupted, his eyes wide and unblinking and you reach for his hands, clasping them in your fingers, "I know it's silly, so silly, but you started randomly showing up every Tuesday and God Kurt – I just, I wished you were there for me."

Kurt's got that sweet soft expression that he gets when he looks at you now. No one's ever looked at you that way, not even your high school sweetheart Thad who you'd dated for three years, not even your parents who claim to love you even now.

"You're a silly boy," He says, and he pets your unshaven cheek like some sweet puppy, "Of course I was there to see you."

* * *

><p>Sometimes you look in the mirror and wonder, wonder so much how you've got such a man in your life, a boy with such life and vigor that he's like a whirlwind of emotions and thoughts and dreams. Kurt's talented, so talented, and you cry the first time (and then everytime, really) you hear him sing. He's immaculate and you're a mess, jeans and cheap Macy's sweaters to his upscale designer outfits. He's light and you're dark, his hair amazingly willful but always perfect, yours unruly and curly and often the bane of your existence.<p>

You discover you'd gone to high school two towns over from one another during your second month anniversary over watery pasta in a well-meaning meal gone wrong and he stares at you like he's never seen you before, knuckles white against the cheap wineglass stem over candlelight. He looks sad, then, so sad, and you're shocked because you'd never wanted to cause that in him, not ever. You nearly trip over your feet to take him in your arms and hug him tight, wondering what's wrong.

"You were so close," Kurt murmurs and there's wetness against your cheek where he's crying and it breaks your heart clean in half. He leans back a little and touches soft fingertips to your jaw and stares in your eyes and whispers your name under his breath like it's bringing him salvation.

Later as you curl around him on your lumpy cheap mattress he'll confess that he'd looked into Dalton Academy when the bullying had gotten so bad but didn't end up going, didn't want to put his family into financial debt. Instead he'd enrolled at another public school nearby and took up Drama instead of Glee club, tied only to his old high school by his step-brother Finn.

He whispers into your ear, wonders what you were like as a teenager, chuckles at your descriptions of hair with too much gel and oversized boxy blazers and an a capella group that was stifled in honor and tradition.

He eventually falls asleep against your side, tear tracks reduced to salty sparkles on his cheeks and you listen to him breathe over and over and over, imagining Kurt Hummel in a Dalton blazer and amongst the boys of the Warblers. You wonder how David and Wes would've liked him, if he would've taken care of Pavarotti. You wonder if you would have ever said yes to Thad's request to take you out on a "proper date" if Kurt was there.

It's a weird feeling, this tight knot in your chest and the boy cuddled up to your side because you'd found one another, yes, but there's always 'what ifs', always, and that's always always something you can't stop thinking about.

* * *

><p>At that coffee shop where everything changed you sit sometimes, guitar case at your feet and notebook on your lap, writing meaningless cheesy prose into your journal about Kurt, your life, your music, New York.<p>

When fall turns into winter and the snowflakes start to fall, Kurt joins you sometimes, sitting across from you with his book and his coffee and his ankle hooked with yours.

Wendy's there, usually, wiping counters and refilling your coffee for free. Once, she tells you how much it means to her to see you two there, together, and she cries. You're startled, but you know Wendy's lonely a lot these days, and she tells you that it's just the way that you and Kurt look at one another.

"I've never seen anyone look at one another like you look at one another," She admits, brushing away a stray tear with a long finger. You hug her then, so so hard and then look over her shoulder at Kurt, who's watching with gentle eyes.

* * *

><p>The first snow storm of the season shuts down New York City in a way that only snow storms can. Blankets of white obscure the streets and sidewalks; even the tourists are kept at bay. At two in the morning you're preparing for the trek back to Kurt's after a late night rehearsal and outside it's coming down hard sideways, the kind of snow that will get in your eyes and mouth and shoes.<p>

It's not something you're looking forward to but as you clomp down the steps to brave Mother Nature you're stopped by the sight of Kurt, standing in the glass vestibule, coat, scarf, gloves obscuring his vision, leaving his bright blue eyes watching you.

"What are you doing here?" You ask, because you wouldn't wish a trip in this weather on anyone and you know Kurt had been home studying. His voice is muffled by the scarf but in the end it doesn't matter because he touches your cheek with gloved fingertips and then straightens your own scarf, hood. Your fingers are too bulky to link but he clasps his hand with yours the best he can before pulling you out into the snowfall.

It's quiet, so quiet, a quiet that almost makes the cold moot, reminds you why you love New York City so much.

You walk in the middle of the street because there's no cars, hand in hand, unable to say a word to one another over the wind and because of the scarves. Around you snow falls, lamps glow dimly against the reflection of the blanket of white covering everything. There's a couple of teenagers tossing snowballs at one another and in the distance you can hear the sound of Christmas music playing from an apartment.

He looks over at you, then; the sun the moon the stars in the darkest of nights.

* * *

><p>In another place and time Kurt Hummel meets Blaine Anderson on the staircase of a private school in Westerville Ohio.<p>

You meet Kurt Hummel in a coffee shop on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in an early fall day to the soundtrack of John Mayer and over a book of plays by Adam Rapp.

Somehow they both seem perfect, as different as they may be, and as New York City drowns around you in winter's shawl, you wrap your arm around his waist and press in close, his warmth on your side like a beacon drawing you home.


End file.
